shouting out to eric rice

Last night at my book dealie (which you so wish you'd gone to because it was so cool, what with all the loud, pulsating music and dancing girls, and it was free, even, so, really, you wish you'd been there) I finally got to meet Eric Rice who was one of {fray}'s first contributors way back in the day, and also recently contributed again. And even though I'm usually suspicious of people who's last name is just an anagram of their first name, I took to him immediately.

The thing about Eric, and I know he knows this already, is he likes to talk. A lot. (Why he's never performed at a fray event, I don't know. He'd be great. You hear that, slacker?) So I was happy that he was able to talk over all the loud music and whooping and hollering there at the bar in the basement of the SFSU multimedia center.

He told me about what he's up to these days, now that he, like everyone, is out of a job. Check out Scenario, his upcoming community book project about growing up in Silicon Valley. Then there's Slack Street Radio, which combines Eric's love of talking and slacking. As if that wasn't enough, now he's tinkering with Audio Blog, a project designed to get people's voices online. Literally.

I remember when the dotcom shakeout began, my first thought was, well, maybe now all those talented people will get back to their screenplay / novel / painting / whatever. It's nice to see that it's happening, even if it means we all have to live off our credit cards to do it.

Now I have to get back to nursing my hangover. Note: If a bartender named Hans who looks like Mister Clean in all black ever offers you his "special vodka," say no. And run. Quickly.

{ 11:36am }